Data (110)

It is difficult to compare the United States and European Community (EC) agricultural sectors for several reasons. For one thing, the European community is an economic association of 12 independent nations, each of which has its own national methods of data collection and statistical presentation. The problem of comparing the two sectors is furner complicated by differences in measurement techniques and the limited availability of data for certain years and locations. Agriculture in the EC involves more people than agriculture in the United States. U.S. farms are larger and fewer than EC farms (9.8 million farms averaging 42 acres each in the EC versus 2.3 million U.S. farms averaging 438 acres each). EC agriculture contributes a larger share of gross domestic product (GDP) than in the United States, but the U.S. per capita contribution to GDP of those employed in agriculture is larger. Incomes in agriculture have decreased and become more variable in both sectors, and in both areas agriculture's contribution to GDP has not grown as fast as the general economy. The EC has just passed the United States as the world's largest agricultural exporter, and it is also a market for one-fourth of the Mated States ' agricultural exports. The costs of supporting agriculture prices and agriculture stocks have risen rapidly in both areas, thereby leading to pressure to examine policy reforms on both sides of the Atlantic. (MN